


With Still No Master Plan

by biichan



Series: Justified & Ancient [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Crack, F/F, Jossed, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-20
Updated: 2007-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-05 05:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biichan/pseuds/biichan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Rani's back in business, the Master's not quite dead after all, and it's all Lucy Saxon's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Still No Master Plan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [madamotaku](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=madamotaku).



> Written for madamotaku as part of the Masterficathon.

It was all Lucy Saxon's fault. Really, it was. The Rani was quite sure of that. If it hadn't been for Lucy, she'd have been quite content to live out the rest of her life as Veronica Usher, UNIT Science Advisor. If it wasn't for Lucy, she'd have never wondered about the watch. Of course, she wasn't supposed to.

They'd met six months previously, after Lord Cole had found Lucy a job at UNIT. You wouldn't have thought that a former political wife would have made a good lab assistant, but when you had the Rani's intellect (brilliant even as Veronica Usher) all you really needed was someone to hand you test tubes and look pretty. Lucy fulfilled both of those qualifications admirably. She was even prettier when she was naked.

"You're still wearing that old thing?" Lucy had asked their first night together, a faint expression of puzzlement gracing her normally blank features. (Pleasantly blank. She was a rather stupid woman, especially compared to Veronica Usher, but there was something rather affecting about her willingness to follow a girl's orders.) "Don't you ever take it off, Ronnie?" That had been her name then—how ironic.

Ronnie had shrugged. "Do you mind?" she'd asked. She'd punctuated the question by nibbling on Lucy's ear. In all honesty, most of the time she forgot that the necklace with the pocket watch was even there, unless she had to take it off to shower.

"Mm, not really," Lucy replied breathlessly. "It's a bit chilly against my skin sometimes, but I think I rather like it." After that she didn't say very much coherent for quite a while.

In fact, Lucy didn't bring up the subject of the watch until well into the next week. "It's funny," she said, fetching Ronnie a new Bunsen burner after the last had exploded.

Ronnie had looked up at her, having decided she rather loathed all alien life forms disguised as fizzy drinks. "Funny, how?"

"Oh, just your watch," Lucy said in a dreamy voice, her head cocked to the side. "Harry had the same designs on his, you know. He told me once that he'd been in it. In the watch—can you imagine? But I suspect he must have been. He told me once that he could make people very small, like dolls. Perhaps that's how he fit inside."

Ronnie snorted in annoyance. "I'm not your husband, Lucy Cole, and you will not be shooting me."

"Oh, I won't," said Lucy. "It's not as if you asked me to, anyhow. Harry did, you know. He said that if it looked like he was going to be taken prisoner to shoot him. He'd rather die."

"If you say another word about Harry," said Ronnie, "I'll quit tying you to my bed. I'm serious, Lucy."

"Can I tie you then?" Lucy asked, mischievously.

Ronnie laughed in spite of herself. "Don't push your luck."

She'd thought it was the end of it then, but of course it wasn't. She kept thinking of mad Harold Saxon, trapped inside his pocket watch. As if there'd be any room for him, what with all the gears and things. Pure poppycock! Just the sort of thing Lucy _would_ believe in. Ronnie checked inside her own watch just in case.

Of course, when she closed it she wasn't Ronnie anymore. And the first thing the Rani did after she found where she'd parked her TARDIS was pick up Lucy and ask a number of penetrating questions about the man who'd called himself Harold Saxon.

Unfortunately, there was much too much that Lucy wasn't quite clear on and what she was clear on was patently disturbing. Gallifrey gone? Only two—three now—Time Lords left in existence? The Rani hoped no one was expecting her to repopulate the species with the Doctor. They'd tried reproduction once when they were both young and stupid and it had worked out very badly.

"Knowing my luck I'll end up in that horrid pink blouse again," the Rani muttered under her breath "Pass the sonic screwdriver, Lucy."

The Doctor was predictably annoyed at having his TARDIS yanked out of the Void. The Rani, however, could care less.

"You could have _killed_ me," he snapped, singed coat flapping behind him in an effort to look heroic or at least cool. The effort was wasted on everyone, including Lucy and the ginger woman standing behind him. "Oh wait, you did kill me once already. Cracked my skull open like an egg so I could fix your giant brain or whatever it was. _And_ you stole Mel's clothes. And you gave me amnesia. And…wait, you're not dead. You're not dead and you're ginger. Do you know how long I've been wanting to be ginger? Ten lives and I'm still not and you're on what, your fifth? Was it a Chameleon Arch? Are there even _more_ of us running around without our memories? And if not, then why are the only Time Lords left my psychotic exes? Is that ice cream van your TARDIS? Interesting choice, there, though there's always something to be said for a good old fashioned police—"

"Oh thanks," said the ginger woman disgustedly. "Now you'll never shut him up."

"—box," the Doctor finished. He shot her an annoyed look. Same old Doctor. He always did like to hear himself speak. His dress sense had improved—barely—but he was the still the same idiot-savant (emphasis on idiot) he'd always been.

"It's nice to see you too, Doctor," the Rani said, ignoring the Doctor's companion. This one was a little older than usual and didn't seem to hang on his every word, but otherwise she looked like just more of the same.

The Doctor shot her an annoyed look. As if it was _her_ fault his companion was sick and tired of his babbling. "What's this about? Don't tell me you have another evil plan. Oh, and I'd stay away from Lucy if I were you, she has a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later."

"I do _not_," Lucy protested heatedly. "You're just angry that Harry liked me better than he liked you."

"Until you _killed_ him," the Doctor snarled. "Congratulations Mrs Saxon, you did what the Daleks, Chantho, the Gallifreyan penal system, and the planet of the bloody Cheetah People failed to do. You killed the Master."

The ginger woman was staring at Lucy. "Wasn't she married to the PM once?"

"Not now, Donna," said the Doctor. He was still glaring at Lucy.

The Rani groaned softly. She remembered why she tended to avoid the Doctor unless absolutely necessary. "The Master. You took his body. Where?"

"Oh that," said the Doctor, blinking. He was looking at her as if he'd almost forgot she was there. This sort of thing never used to happen back in her last incarnation. Of course, she'd wore a lot more leather then. "Give me a minute. I'll draw you a map."

Twenty minutes, a cup of tea, and one map later, Lucy and the Rani were on their way to visiting the Master's grave, what little of it there was. Ash and bones, mostly. The Doctor had built him a funeral pyre, but it hadn't burnt everything.

"Oh look," said Lucy. "That's Harry's ring." She started to roll her sleeves

"No, let me," said the Rani, reaching forward to take the ring.

The universe exploded in a cacophony of drums

_—she was falling, through the blue no-space of the time vortex and the **drums**, oh the drums. They surrounded her—flowed through her—their relentless rhythm permeating every cell of her body, beating a grim tattoo as she fell onward._

_She could hear Koschei laughing and suddenly he was everywhere: the round boyish face she remembered from childhood; the maverick grin of her friend at the Academy; his first regeneration and his second, both which she knew on sight; other men that she could only guess were further regenerations, despite there being too many of them—quite a few had the same ridiculous goatee as the one she'd met during the Industrial Revolution. There was a hideous, horribly disfigured one that the bits of Ronnie that were still inside the Rani wished she could look away from, but it didn't matter, because when she closed her eyes the Master was still there with his mocking laughing. She was still falling through the vortex._

_"AT LAST," she heard in a multitude of voices, one incongruously American. "I AM REBORN."_

_Over my dead body, she thought and wished she hadn't, because it was probably what he was trying for. It was getting hard to feel her fingers—she glanced down and saw that they were dissolving—and worse, the Saxon regeneration had started to sing:_

_**…they're justified and they're ancient and they like to roam the land; they're justified and they're ancient—I hope you understand; they call me up in Tennessee…** _

_Worse yet, they were dancing: all of them, even the walking corpse. And still, **still** the singing went on, the sound of the drums shifting to provide a backbeat:_

_ **…they're justified and they're ancient and they drive an ice cream van; they're justified and they're ancient, with still no master plan…** _

_When the regeneration that looked like Doctor Strange started to rap about fishing, she knew she'd had enough:_

_ ** GET OUT OF MY MIND, KOSCHEI ** _

_—and she pushed._

Her face was wet. She opened her eyes. Lucy. Lucy and the grey walls of her TARDIS. "Oh good," said Lucy. "You're awake." She had something cool and wet pressed up against the Rani's forehead—an icepack, she realized, and the ice had already begun to melt.

There was a figure behind Lucy, regrettably familiar. The Rani grimaced. "And just what is _he_ doing here?"

"He's a ghost," Lucy explained.

"He tried to steal my body," the Rani snapped.

"It was how the ring was programmed," said the Master, who was standing—or rather floating—behind Lucy. "It was set to do that to the first person who'd pick it up. I thought it would be the Doctor."

The Rani snorted. "Do you think that makes it any better?" She wondered if he knew it had almost been Lucy—or if he even cared. She knew the Master. One body was as good as another for him.

The Master opened his mouth—and evidently thought better of what he'd been about to say. He sighed. "Look, I just need you to make me a new body."

"I brought back one of his bones," Lucy said helpfully. "He thinks we'll be able to get enough of a DNA sample to do it."

The Rani made a face. "After what he just did to me, why do you think I'd even consider it?"

"To prove that you could," the Master said easily. "And because I'll haunt you if you don't. I wouldn't even be a ghost, if you hadn't resisted my psychic take-over."

The Rani stared at him. That piece of skewed logic was worthy of a Dalek. "I'd forgot how insane you really were," she muttered under her breath.

"I wasn't the one breeding giant mice," the Master said cheerfully. "So! To your laboratory, then?"

The Rani groaned. "Not now," she said. "My head hurts." There was one thing, at least. If she built him a new body and he _left_ then she could get started with the really interesting science experiments. Perhaps she'd use Lucy's genetic material to help her build a new race of Time Lords. The introduction of human DNA, after all, hadn't hurt the Doctor.

The Master was humming under his breath, now—the same tune he'd been singing in her mind. The Rani pushed herself up to her feet. "I'm going to my room," she said, with as much dignity as she could muster.

She didn't look back to see if Lucy had followed her.

**Author's Note:**

> The song the Master sings during his ~~Disney Acid Sequence~~ dance number is "Justified and Ancient (Stand By the JAMS)" by the KLF.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Justified &amp; Ancient (the Antichrist remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/384411) by [seriousfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seriousfic/pseuds/seriousfic)




End file.
